by J. M. Frey
“I don’t know,” I admit, and it feels like acid on the tongue. I cannot keep the sneer out of my voice. “I have done my best to trace the stalker’s digital footprint. Whoever they are, their hacking skills far exceed mine.”
Pip goggles. “They what?”
“I have found no evidence of emails, of texts, or even of photographs or CCTV stills of someone planning to do my creator harm. Outside, of course, the usual entitled fanboys whose self-loathing has become so vitriolic that they project it outward onto Elgar.” I run my hands through my hair, flustered and upset by my failure.
Pip pulls my hands down, kisses the back of each of them once. “You think it’s that?”
“I don’t know. Usually, this sort of cruel narcissism is a crippling paralytic, but sometimes, in directing it outward . . . possibly?”
“These sorts of revolting threats are completely different than bringing an assault rifle to school,” Pip says. “This is a different MO.”
“My only lead turned out to be as substantial as Wisp-light,” I admit. “One of the obsessive fans I keep tabs on—the one from Detroit?—seems to be acting outside of their usual pattern. But a look into their new habits reveals only that they are perhaps starting to drift away from the vitriol of their former web-forum colleagues. They’ve initiated a friendship with a new online gaming partner, and are spending more time in video-chats that are streamed, and which I therefore cannot access.”
“Well, good for them, I guess,” Pip says, bitter.
“Yes.” I dismiss my disappointment at not having an easy villain to roust with a huff. “Any move away from their usual horrible online rants is a good one.”
“So, what do you want to do now?” Pip asks.
“Honestly, bao bei, beyond calling Elgar and screaming in his ear, there is little I can do. Whoever did this, however it was done, the Seattle Police Department seems to have it well in hand. I have set a few new alerts to certain keywords that may be used in their reports, but I am not yet prepared to meddle with another district’s operations for fear of making something worse. And from the tone of the reports, Elgar doesn’t seem too affected. It is a shame to say, but . . . he’s been threatened before. He knows how to protect himself.”
Pip rests her head against my clavicle and sighs. “And he’d call us if he needed us.”
“I should hope so,” I say, the rage rushing back in. “Though the fool did not tell us. So make of that what you will.”
Pip snorts. “He’s being a dramatic martyr.”
“All the same,” I admit, “I shall be strengthening the digital protections around our home.”
“Shame you can’t set wards,” Pip says, and I don’t think she’s teasing.
“Perhaps if magic really is here, I may be able to—Pip!”
I have just enough time to keep her from pitching sideways against Alis’s high chair when Pip freezes up and her eyes roll up in her head. She sways with greater force than I’ve seen in one of her fits thus far, as if she has been flung from her chair by a mighty, invisible blow. I manage to get us onto the tiles safely, Pip piled in my lap. Her arms jump up, as if to ward off something coming at her face, and the suddenness of the movement and the blow of her wrist to my forehead drives me back against the side of the table. I crack my head hard.
Alis screams.
I manage to stay upright, shaking away the stars that spark in the edges of my vision.
Alis wriggles and writhes, and I am grateful that her high chair is both sturdy enough not to tip and comes with a little seatbelt that she has not yet learned to undo on her own.
Pip slides from my lap down onto the tile, and I just manage to keep my hands under her head, keep her from bouncing it off the hard surface. Pip cries out once, a long, high keen, arms still raised to protect against something I cannot see, cannot fend off for her.
Dear Writer, my poor love. What is happening to us? To her?
When she finally slumps, chest jumping as she struggles to catch her breath, I take the time to gently set her down and go see to Alis. My daughter is sobbing nonsense, a string of words in English and Mandarin punctuated with, “Bu yao, bu bu!”
“’S all right, sweeting,” I mumble, and lift her from her high chair. Alis tips herself forward in my arms, trying to get at Pip on the floor. “No, no, let your mother rest for a moment.” Alis screams louder as I walk us into the living room, twisting and jumping in my arms like a live wire.
For a moment, I fear that, as Pip’s daughter, whatever is affecting my wife is torturing Alis as well, but a careful examination of Alis shows no pain in her back, no reaction to my light touches on her skull. She seems only to be upset by Pip’s fit.
Another few puzzle pieces floating at the back of my mind slot into place. When Pip is well enough, she staggers into the living room and joins Alis and I on the sofa. This time, I let Alis crawl over to Pip, who seems content to hold her daughter close and whisper nothings into her ear. She pets Alis gingerly, though, and holds herself stiffly.
“Pip,” I say, acting on my concern and closing my fingers around Pip’s wrist gently. Pip lets me pull her hand away from Alis’s back, and I am startled to find her palm an angry red, already blistering a little, as if she’d burned it badly. Pip offers up her second palm without saying a word, proving that it has happened to both hands.
The burns go part of the way past her wrists.
“Cloth Cage of Neglect time for you, sweeting,” I tell Alis, trying to lighten the mood. It doesn’t work. I pluck Alis away from her mother and drop her into her playpen. She grumbles unhappily, but luckily, her rage seems to have worn her out, and she lays down and cuddles some of her board books crankily.
“And upstairs to the bathroom and the first aid kit for you, wife,” I tell Pip. She nods wearily, and lets me help her lever herself upright. She minces as she walks, cradling her rib cage.
She sits down on the edge of the tub, and then gasps as I turn around to fetch the first aid kit from under the sink. “Forsyth, your head.”
“Hmm?” I touch the place from which my headache seems to radiate, and my fingers come away slightly tacky with blood. “A small hurt,” I say. “Let’s see to you first.”
I run the tub as cold as I can make it, and Pip rinses her hands while I peel up her shirt to get a look at her side. Her torso is bruised with deep purple marks, the kind of bruises Kintyre used to get when he took a fall from Stormbearer. But these ones look days old already. Even before my eyes, some of the smaller bruises are beginning to lighten to the sickly green-and-yellow of healing. It is unnatural and alarming.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone was Speaking Words of Healing over Pip right now. Working on a theory, I pull Pip’s cold, wet hands up to my face and Speak my own Words of Healing. The Word crackles and sparks in the air, an actual puff of watery glitter, but nothing happens. Still, it is more than a Word has ever done in the Overrealm before.
“It’s getting stronger,” Pip says, face ashen.
“But not nearly strong enough for what we need right now,” I say.
None of the blisters on her palms have grown large enough to require lancing, so I set about swabbing her hands with antiseptic wipes and covering them with a generous helping of burn cream. Pip gestures wearily at my head.
“I can’t help you clean that when I’m covered in goo.”
“No need, my love,” I say, kissing her forehead gently.
I rip open a fresh swab and search the back of my skull until I find the part that stings. It doesn’t start bleeding again, so that’s a blessing, I suppose.
When I am done, I help Pip back downstairs and to the sofa, where she can lay down within easy reach of Alis.
“I’ll call the school and have your TA teach your classes today,” I say, and this final act of thoughtfulness seems to be what undoes my wife. Pip rolls over, buries her face in the sofa cushions, and begins to weep. “Pip.”
“I don’t understand
what’s happening,” she says. “I don’t understand.”
“Shhh, rest for now,” I say, sitting on the arm of the sofa and petting her hair.
“You know what it is. You’re thinking something,” Pip accuses, looking up at me with tears forming along her lashes. “Come on.”
“I have my theories,” I admit reluctantly.
“Spill.”
I sigh, and shake my head gently to avoid any residual dizziness from my knock. “When you a-a-are re-reh-rested.”
“Now,” Pip insists, gaze hardening.
“It se-seems th-th-that th-the d-d-dates and t-tah-times of your f-fits ma-tch the day-dates and t-tuh-times of the inci-ci-ci-dents happening arou-nd Elgar-r,” I say softly. I watch, tense and waiting, as Pip digests this.
“It’s me,” she gasps, and then the waterworks begin in earnest. She twists around and lays her head on my knees, sobbing fit to shake apart. “I knew it. I knew something had to be wrong. I knew it—I just . . . fucking trilogies.”
“We d-d-don’t know th-that,” I remind her. “We ha-have no p-pro-proof.”
“Oh, god, the light, the burns,” Pip gasps, staring up at me. “Elgar. You need to—”
“In a mo-ment,” I say. “Whatever has ha-happened has h-happened, and nothing yet has happened to him p-personally. I will see to you, and then I will check on hi-him.”
“I’m fine,” Pip lies. “Call him.”
“Pip, you are my first priority. If he was still with the p-puh-police, he will already have received the best first res-ponder care. Perhaps they have caught the person th-threatening him and—”
“What if it’s not a person?” Pip asks tremulously, chin wobbling. “What if you . . . you can’t find anyone? What if there’s nothing to find because there’s no one behind it?”
A frisson of fear crawls over my flesh. “Bao bei, what are you implying? That it’s—”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Pip sobs. “Is it me? Oh my god, is it me? Am I doing . . . ?”
“You can’t possibly. N-Not con-consciously, a-at least—”
“Maybe it’s really the magic? What if it’s tearing out of me? Going after him?” Pip looks at Alis, asleep in her playpen. “What if I—? What if it gets out and hurts—?”
“I wo-won’t l-l-let it,” I vow, as firmly as I am able.
“You can’t promise—”
“If there is enou-enough m-ma-magic in the air to harm m-me or A-Alis, then th-th-thu-there is en-nough to st-st-stop it fuh-first.”
“I hope you’re right,” Pip whispers into my thigh, pressing her forehead against my hip. I cradle her head gently. “God, bao bei, I hope you’re right.”
Elgar
Come the following Saturday, Elgar is desperate to leave. Not because it’s scary, but because he has nothing to do. Elgar has slept, watched television with a rotating cast of various stony-faced agents, kept abreast of the casting news with Riletti, let Jackson bully him into long and rambling walks around the walled-in garden, answered the panicked phone calls from his agent when she learned he was in a goddamn safe house, and tried very hard not to miss writing.
In this week alone, surrounded by neat spy stuff and with only his own thoughts to occupy him, he’s had a dozen ideas for a magical cop-procedural mystery series, and he’s jotted them down in his notebook, carefully keeping from envisioning his main protagonist too clearly, just in case . . . in case . . . aw, hell.
Elgar doesn’t think it’s possible to be so scared for such a sustained amount of time. He wonders if this is what it must feel like to be a peasant living in a castle under a siege you can do nothing about. Or, possibly, what living in the Middle East right now might be like. The constant and complete awareness of everything around you at all times, being constantly prepped and primed for fight or flight, is exhausting. He’s tired, but can’t sleep. Every creak and crack of the strange house startles him. He’s too tense to really be bored, but too bored for time to pass quickly.
He calls Juan every day, via secure satellite phone, to stay abreast of what’s going on with Flageolet and the TV series, as well as the house. Juan’s also managing his social media feeds, pretending to be Elgar and making no reference to the stalker, or the horror that has been following him, in order to keep everyone calm and not tip-off the crazies. Elgar’s been amused to note that Juan has him taking “long walks” through the park a lot recently. The dig isn’t as subtle as his assistant thinks it is.
Linux chirrups and meows in the background sometimes, which makes Elgar homesick in a way that has nothing to do with places.
Four days into Elgar’s exile, the stress of it all makes him slip up in exactly the way he feared he would. Juan asks him if he’s been in contact with his Canadian cousins, and Elgar uses Forsyth’s full name when he replies.
“Forsyth?” Juan asks. “Okay, yeah, no, that makes sense. Did you name Forsyth in the book for him? Is it his real name?”
“What? I . . . ” Elgar says, caught out and wishing he could see Juan’s face, could parse his expression so he can figure out what his assistant is getting at. Tomorrow, he’s going to insist on a video-call. “Yeah, I guess you could say so. Why are you stuck on this?”
“It’s a bit funny, is all . . .” Juan says slowly. “It’s just that, the other day, my boyfriend was asking about him. Forsyth, I mean. The character. He wanted to know what I knew about him.”
The familiar icy chill crawls up Elgar’s spine. “Why?” he asks, trying not to sound paranoid.
“I dunno—for smutty fan fiction or something? You know fans like slashing the side characters. He’s probably one of those Three Pointe Turn writers.”
“The what?”
“It’s a ship name. You know? Three Pointe . . . the sheriff, his wife, and Forsyth?”
“What about them?”
“They’re stories about a threesome with . . . ? Never mind,” Juan says quickly when Elgar makes a garbled, sort of disbelieving sound.
“Rupin and Dorthi and . . . right, no. No,” Elgar says quickly.
Juan chuckles. “I dunno, boss. Wouldn’t be the first threesome you’d written.”
Elgar rubs his eyes hard enough to make the darkness spark in his head. “No.”
“All right, I’ll lay off. Did you get the email about the table read in LA?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you . . . want to go?”
Elgar looks back over his shoulder at the man in the impeccable suit and large headphones listening in on his conversation. The man gives a nod.
“I guess,” Elgar says at length. “I . . . I mean, I can’t stay here forever.”
“Right, and maybe jetting off to LA for a few weeks is a good idea. Clear your head.”
Elgar snorts. “Clearly you’ve never been to LA. The air there is many things, but clear will never be one of them.”
Juan makes a sort of wistful sound.
“Oh,” Elgar says slowly. “Do you . . . want to come to LA with me?”
Juan makes another sound, this one a bit strangled. “Linux, boss . . .”
“I hate to say it, but maybe Linux will be, ah . . . better—”
“Safer?” Juan interrupts tentatively.
“Yeah. In a, you know, a kitty hotel.”
Juan sighs, and Elgar can envision him nodding. “If someone is still watching your place, they may now be watching mine, you mean?”
“Come to LA,” Elgar blurts. “We’ll stay two weeks. You can go clubbing somewhere appropriately gay—”
“Boss,” Juan chuckles.
“We’ll do everything face-to-face for a while. I haven’t seen Kim in the flesh in a dog’s age, anyway. Come on.”
“Boss, you sound really—”
“Please, Juan.” Elgar is aware that it’s needy and begging, but he can’t seem to keep the desperation out of his tone.
The silence on the other end of the connection makes it more than clear that Juan has heard it, too. Heard it, and is
moved by it.
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll book the tickets. Out of SeaTac?”
Another look over his shoulder and another subtle nod from Impeccable Suit has Elgar saying, “Yes, SeaTac’s fine. Book it for two days from now.”
“Okay, I’ll pack a bag for you—”
“No, I . . . I want to go back to the house myself. I can pack.”
Impeccable Suit has no opinion on this desire, apparently, as he neither nods nor shakes his head.
“Are you sure, boss?”
“I’ve got some stuff I need to take with me to LA. Papers and things, and a gift for Kim. It’ll be faster if I do it.”
“If you’re sure . . .”
“I’m sure,” Elgar says, and he’s proud of how his voice doesn’t quite quaver when he says it.
“So, we’re not telling anyone we’re going, right?”
“No,” Elgar says.
“Not even your cousin?”
“Maybe,” Elgar hedges. Impeccable Suit has no opinion on this, either. Elgar hasn’t had enough privacy to call Forsyth yet, but his worry that his email and texts are being watched is waning with each passing day. He’s determined to call them tonight, safe house or no. It’s time he brought Forsyth in. Maybe he can even take a minute while he’s packing—nip into his en suite and do it then.
Whoever it is that seems to be trying to scare him hasn’t threatened him in any new ways. The cops that were casing his place for clues said nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and nothing about the TV series—which is all he’d been emailing his agent about for the last three days—has appeared online. If someone was watching his email in order to scare him or find ways to ruin his life, then wouldn’t they have leaked the TV series casting all over the place by now?
Perhaps it’s a bit arrogant to conflate leaking optioning news with grievous bodily harm, but for Elgar, they’re analogous. He wants this TV series to go well so badly. He needs to know if the things he created can have happy endings. He wants to get to the end of the TV series, nine seasons down the line, so he can canonize Kintyre and Bevel’s relationship, the joy of Kintyre’s son Wyndam, and to make sure that no one else can ever write something into his world that will hurt the people that Forsyth and Lucy love. Or take away the happily ever afters they created for themselves after he stopped writing them.
